I'm Ornn, and I'm about to be beaten to my knees by the Man-eating Horse Girl!

"Get out of the car, we've arrived at our destination."

Fujimasa nodded and followed Orn out of the car.

Across the street was a row of somewhat old houses, which, judging from their decoration and layout, appeared to be some kind of general store. Behind the general store were vast stretches of farmland.

The shop was closed, but three vans with their engines still running and a strange-looking four-wheeled cargo van were parked around the shop.

Fujimasa arrived at the house and, checking the address, said, "Number 8-34, 9-chome, Shin-Totsugawa-cho. This is definitely the place..."

"I saw that senior's comment, this place was open two days ago, why is it closed now?"

Orn looked at the three-story building in front of him. Light was shining from the second floor, but the shop on the first floor only had its roller shutter roughly pulled down, making it look less like it was actually closed and more like the owner had temporarily closed it for some reason.

Moreover, the matter is very urgent.

He glanced at the markings on the three vans and suddenly said, "March, go to the van and get me some bottled water. It should be in the back seat."

"Of course, it might be in the front seat. Just bring it to me once you find it, thanks!"

Fujimasa gave him a sidelong glance, but she didn't think much of it and obediently turned and went back into the car.

Orn glanced at the van again, then took out his phone and went up the stairs to the second floor of the grocery store.

Chapter 170 Melon Stall Owner

"Hello? Is this Ryuzo Wada?"

"Yes, yes, it's me, Yoshinoda Suke,"

"The watermelons here are ripe recently. Your kids must be craving some, right? I'll bring you some over later!"

"Hey! What are you saying! Before my mother passed away, she told me to send you some fruit every year. I may not have many other skills, but I was the second assistant when I was working with my teacher on breeding! Why are you being so polite with me?!"

"By the way, I heard from you that the little star from your place is back? How is she? Has she grown taller?"

"Haha, still so short! Okay, I'll bring the watermelon over to find you guys later."

"How is the old man's health? Is he still planning to keep it a secret?"

"Fine, you owe her this, so I won't say anything. You can decide what to do with it yourselves."

"...Okay, goodbye."

The middle-aged man hung up the phone. He looked out the second-floor window and was greeted by a refreshing expanse of lush greenery.

He turned to pack his things, and thinking about his friend's predicament, he couldn't help but sigh.

It has been six years since he took over his deceased mother's land, and even now, when he looks out the window at the fields, he feels as if his mother is still there.

“Eldest son, I can only entrust that land to you. Second son is naturally active and quite good at business, but asking him to farm is probably a bit too much for him.”

"In the end, this land can only be entrusted to you, Dalang. You went to university, you have a master's degree, you are willing to work in the fields, and you know many things that even your mother doesn't understand. From now on... I will have to entrust it to you."

"Please remember, Mother, every summer from now on, secretly hide some fruit and send it to the children at the neighboring Wild Brocade Ranch. They need it more."

"...Okay, Mom, I understand."

Yoshinoda initially didn't understand his mother's last wish. He couldn't understand why, with such a small annual income, she would still set aside some of her meager earnings to send to people who were completely unrelated to her.

But this was ultimately his mother's dying wish. He knew how difficult it must have been for a single mother to raise two children twenty years before his father's early death. Even if it was just to fulfill his mother's wish, he would continue to send them off.

When he first brought sweet and delicious fruit to the children on the ranch, seeing the gratitude in their eyes and hearing their laughter, he finally understood why so many strangers had come to offer flowers at his mother's funeral.

The ranch owner, still in his prime, invited Yoshinoda to stay overnight at the ranch. After a long, drawn-out night of sighing, he vaguely understood why his mother had done what she did.

Good deeds never need a reason.

So Yoshinoda persisted, and no matter how low his income was, he would magically bring delicious fruit to the children on the ranch every summer.

His classmates couldn't understand it at all. With his knowledge and his teacher's connections, he could have easily gotten into any research institute for further studies.

But Yoshinoda refused them all, instead hiding away in the countryside of Hokkaido to start growing the watermelons he and his mentors had been researching.

This sending lasted for six years.

And now, it's the seventh year.

Yoshinoda picked up the pruning shears on the table, then grabbed a few burlap sacks, and prepared to go to the back hill to harvest watermelons from his small melon patch.

After temporarily lowering the shutter of the grocery store, he turned and walked towards the back of the mountain.

"Hey! Mr. Tasuke! Please wait a moment!"

Just as he stepped onto the tricycle, three vans suddenly stopped beside him, and then a large group of seven or eight people got out of the vehicles.

The man at the head of the group smiled and said, "Hehe, Mr. Tasuke, we are a security company commissioned by the Japan Agricultural Cooperatives to handle matters related to private land cultivation."

"I think you've heard of our company, right?"

Yoshinoda frowned, got out of the car, looked at the logo of "Kwonro Security Company" on the other person's chest and shook his head, saying, "I don't know him."

"Don't know them? No problem, you'll get to know them soon!"

The speaker was a burly man standing behind the leader. He raised his chin and said, "Brother, why don't we go up and have a chat?"

As they spoke, the remaining people strode forward, adopting a threatening posture.

Yoshinoda was a little flustered, but he took a deep breath and forced himself to remain calm, saying, "Alright, then everyone, come upstairs with me and let's talk."

Upon reaching the second floor, Yoshinoda sat kneeling on the tatami mat in the living room. He looked at the man at the head of the group, about to ask something, but the other man spoke first: "Mr. Izumi, it seems you are involved in the illicit sale of high-value crops, and are also suspected of disrupting market order, is that right?"

Yoshinoda was a little confused, but he quickly realized that the other party was trying to pin a serious accusation on him.

He immediately retorted, "No, no! How could that be? How could I have disrupted the market?! You need to provide evidence!!"

"Evidence? Isn't your cart used to secretly transport watermelons out for sale evidence?"

The burly man snorted coldly and placed the dozens of photos he was holding directly on the table.

Yoshinoda pulled out one of the photos; it was a picture of himself planting watermelons on the hill behind his house.

He angrily said, "You're taking pictures without my permission!! This is an invasion of privacy! What you're doing is..."

"Don't give me that 'secret filming' nonsense! You've broken the law, you know that?!"

The burly man slammed his hand on the table and shouted, "This is your problem! We're authorized to handle yours!"

The leader smiled and said, "Hey, don't be so fierce, brother. We're just following orders. We know that the stuff you grow won't make much of a splash in the market. We're just forced into this situation!"

“Your matter is neither a big deal nor a small deal. If it’s not weighed, it’s less than four ounces, but if it is, it could weigh a thousand pounds.”

"However, if you are willing to cooperate with us and go to our company to teach our junior employees some knowledge, it is not something that cannot be solved."

Yoshinoda's mind stirred slightly, and he asked, "Does this mean... I can understand it as me going to work as a teacher at your company?"

"Yes, come with us to the company to be a teacher."

"It's that simple?"

"It's that simple."

Looking at the amiable man sitting across the table, he felt there was something strange about the whole situation.

From making a strong first impression, to playing the good cop/bad cop game, and finally proposing a price that sounds acceptable to them,

The other party is definitely a professional, and what they're after is definitely not just a melon patch.

Teaching? What can I teach? Besides my experience researching watermelon breeding under a professor in the Faculty of Agriculture at Hokkaido University, what else can I...?

Yoshinoda suddenly looked up at the man leading the group and asked, "Do you... know Mr. Yamada Ichiro?"

The man was taken aback for a moment upon hearing this, then he also laughed.

He clapped his hands and said, "Smart! No wonder you're a top student from the agricultural college, your mind works really fast!"

"However, your teacher is a bit out of touch with reality, so we had no choice but to come to his star pupil."

Yoshinoda abruptly stood up, but before he could utter a question, the people sitting around him also immediately stood up.

A deathly silence fell over the room.

Until someone suddenly pushed open the living room door and burst into the suffocating silence.

"Boss, I'm from the central government. I'd like to order some melons for the young ladies!"

After scanning the tense atmosphere in the room, the young man chuckled and scratched his head, saying, "Haha, everyone's busy."

"I won't bother you anymore, I'm leaving now!"

Chapter 171 Barefoot and Shoes

Seeing that the young man who had suddenly barged into the room was about to leave, the burly man immediately stepped forward and grabbed the door.

"Don't move! We suspect you're an accomplice to this melon farmer who's been secretly cultivating the land! Come with us!"

As he spoke, he reached out to tug at the other man's sleeve, seemingly trying to pull him in from outside.

But to his surprise, the young man who had just looked astonished suddenly changed his expression and walked in very casually before he could even grab the other man's clothes.

"Ah, so you're here on orders. No problem, no problem."

The young man went straight to Yoshinoda's side and sat down. He smiled and looked at the skinny man sitting opposite him, asking, "Since you've been authorized to inspect, you should have the relevant inspection documents, right? Sir, could you please show me the relevant proof?"

"of course can."

The skinny man in the lead casually pulled out a few reports from under the stack of photos. He looked the young man who had suddenly appeared in front of him up and down, and said in a calm tone, "Here you go, the reports are right here. These are all evidence of his unauthorized cultivation and sale of crops."

"Sir, if you've finished reading, could you perhaps change my turn...?"

Orn waved his hand, tapped the so-called "proof" on the table, and asked with a smile, "Brother, don't be in such a hurry, you haven't shown me this proof yet."

The skinny man in the lead couldn't quite understand what Orn was saying, while the burly man beside him bluntly stated, "How is this not proof? This is proof!"

Orn pushed the so-called documents in front of him back and said, "If, as you say, you are someone hired by the agricultural cooperative, then you should produce proof that they appointed your company, right? Otherwise, how am I supposed to know if you were actually appointed?"

"Shouldn't we be keeping things like which organization and which person it is, the employment documents, and the official seal on them, from being hidden away?"

Hearing this, Yoshinoda, who was sitting next to Orn, finally calmed down a little.

Yes! I was really fooled by the other party just now, and I completely forgot about such an important thing!

Since the other party claims to be acting under orders, they must provide the relevant documentation. How can a security company arrest people without proper legal documentation?

Just as the melon stall owner and the security company were clashing, Orn had already overheard most of it outside the door. He immediately saw through their strategy: using their power to intimidate.

This move is somewhat similar to the so-called battle cry that street thugs shout at their opponents before a brawl. The content of the battle cry is actually not important; what matters is that the momentum must be strong and the voice must be loud.

Most ordinary people, when frightened like this, would be somewhat stunned. In such a situation, the thugs would seize the initiative and naturally be at a disadvantage in terms of momentum.

What Orn said at this moment was not just to enlighten Yoshinoda, but more importantly, he wanted to confirm whether the other party had really obtained official authorization.

Judging from the standoff just now, it seems that the company's intention is not to arrest the other party with a minor charge like "farming without permission," but rather to have this unassuming middle-aged man do some kind of research.

After all, according to current laws, the fruit Yoshinoda grew could be considered as fruit he grew for his own consumption. As long as it wasn't actually weighed, the matter could be turned a blind eye and wouldn't be taken to the extreme of filing a case or getting him arrested.

The security guards from Quanluo Company were merely using this charge as a pretext to pave the way for their subsequent verbal manipulation.

So Orn made a guess: these people... probably didn't have real authorization at all, or rather, they had authorization, but it was just a verbal agreement.

A verbal agreement that has no supporting evidence is ineffective.

This is why, although this group of people appear calm and collected, their verbal attacks are designed to be rapid and effective.

Upon hearing what Orn said, the burly man next to the skinny man immediately roared, "Stop with the nonsense! Forget about proof and all that! The point is! We have evidence!"

"If we sue him, he'll get at least ten years in prison! Understand?! Do you know who we are?!"

Ornn ignored the burly man's roar, keeping his eyes fixed on the skinny leader.

The burly man clearly realized they couldn't produce any evidence, so he had no choice but to steer the conversation back to a position favorable to them.

At the same time, he once again used the same tactic he had employed when facing Yoshinoda, attempting to intimidate the young man who had suddenly barged in and caused trouble.

Ornn's approach was to completely ignore the other party, because based on their recent exchange, the leader was the one truly capable of making decisions.

This loud, burly man is just there to create a lively atmosphere; aside from looking intimidating, he serves no real purpose.

Of course, if it really came down to resorting to force, this man would be quite capable, but Orn wasn't worried about that at all.

The larger the organization, the lower the probability that they will directly take action.

One of the main reasons why the dojo fight incident involving Asuka Izumi happened was that the way dojo conflicts were resolved was biased towards duels with swords drawn, rather than peaceful conversations.

Street thugs are naturally not afraid of fighting, because they have nothing to lose and are not afraid of those who are in power. They have no worries about their safety, no weaknesses, and therefore are not intimidated by others.

However, Quanluo Security Company is different. According to the information investigated by Wada and Asuka, the company's employees include not only former members of the Hongkou Group, but also many newly recruited ordinary people.

They may not know what the company's predecessor did, nor may they know what the company's current business is. They're just here to make a living; they won't actually do anything dangerous.